Hard As Clay
by KadiToka-Chii
Summary: He probably would have dug himself to death if she hadn't stopped him.


**Hard as Clay**

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**||… Yesssss… I got an idea… an absolutely horrible idea that hardly works in any sort of logical sense, BUT, this **_**is **_**fanfiction, and I am certain that Gus is bisexual, and that Spectra will either betray poor Gussy or die a horrible and heroic death as Keith. And then Gus will just… wander… like a… lost puppy… and likely get adopted by the Resistance… all of whom but Mira are callous to his pain… his pain, yes… oh Gussy, how I enjoy your pain… and he will go emo, purely for my sadistic enjoyment…**

… **Just for the record, I still love him. As a **_**fan**_**, not a fan**_**girl**_**. I use the term 'love' very broadly.**

**And I don't actually think that being emo is something to be proud of. Because cutting yourself is kind of idiotic and melodramatic. It's simply… strangely… incredibly interesting to read about… do not judge me. I enjoy reading about depressions.**

**And yes. This story does fail. It fails very much. I suck even more at triangles then I thought…**

**||Disclaimer: I own not the Bakugan.**

**||Gus-centric // Poorly implied past Spectra x Gus and even more poorly utilized presentish-future Mira x Gus. I truly do love this triangle, with all of my heart… it's my baby…**

**||Warnings: A drunken and extremely depressed. mildly crazy, w/angsty Gus. **

**||He probably would have dug himself to death if she hadn't stopped him.**

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A haze of gray and black circled him slowly, pulsing, eagerly wondering when it would be best to gobble him up.

Flashes of light, brief and blinding, forcing him to turn his head and lurch away.

Cool glass held in a limp grip, threatening to slip and fracture upon cracked concrete

Stabs of rain punching through thin clothing, deadening the shivering skin that the flimsy coat failed to protect, though unable to penetrate any further… unable to dull the hot, twisting jumble of feelings constantly threatening to break loose in the most violent manner possible.

This is what he'd been reduced to.

A tired shell, harboring only simmering hatred and misery and regrets for his failures, his blunders, each and every one of his flaws that had driven him into this empty existence and into the care of his past enemies… now just living reminders of everything he had longed to destroy, the mistakes he had intended to right…

_Especially_ her_, with that damn likeness in her face, in her eyes, in her understanding of his loss, her loss…_

A loss that everyone seemed to only recognize as hers; after all, he was but a forlorn outcast, unable to return to his old home, unable to find anywhere else to stay, unable to forgive or be forgiven…

He was just an unfortunate outcome of their struggles. Something for them to pity.

Laughter rang all around him; sharp, cold and mocking, pattering incessantly on cement and grass and buildings, a deafening static in his ears. Ridiculing him for his hopelessness, his stupidity, for every bruise and scar he gained on his continuous fall from greatness, for every pathetic step he took…

_And strangely enough reminding him of those echoing words long gone, of aloof thanks and compliments, shadowed with uncharacteristic feelings reserved just for him, and only him, rare gratitude… and then_ her _damn words, all of them laced with pestilent concern, and he didn't want it, didn't damn want it because it wasn't_ his _voice,_ his _worry…_

It could have been the alcohol, its seductive poison working its way deeper into his fried system, but the world was trembling, all around him. Nothing was stable… even the ground beneath his staggering feet at this moment was crumbling away, leaving him with nothing left to stand upon…

But of course that was impossible. Solid ground had dissolved away years ago.

And if was all because of her… for sowing the first baneful seeds of doubt in the pinnacle of belief that was his master… seeds that grew into gluttonous vines, sucking the soil dry until it was simply dust, blown away effortlessly with a passing breeze…

Hours. Minutes. Seconds. _Years_. Who knows how long he'd been walking by now, taking this wretched journey of his. How long it had finally taken for him to reach those rusted gates, towering high and imposing against the murky night and rattling painfully against a tremulous chain wound through two bars, a heavy padlock clanking dully as the wind whipped its cruel way by, whispering in Gus' ears about how little an obstacle this was, that getting by was almost too easy…

_Wind that spoke like another familiar, confident phantom of long ago… murmuring consolations and proud exclamations as it scraped across his cheek like those rough, unmindful fingers…_

His body shuddered as his hand, blurred by rain and liquor, grasped at the lock desperately, giving it a sharp tug; the thin, brittle metal broke away easily, cracked links falling to the ground as the chain snaked its way out of the bars, slipping through his grasp. A weak boundary, fragile protection, easily snapped.

The gates creaked open, and for all their foreboding presence were completely unable to stop him now, not when his intent began to focus, remembering the path he had been forced to tread so many times before…

Crooked and mossy markers passed him by, few the same as the others; some were white marble, streaked with muddied dirt and dust, others simple stone, probably once gleaming in respect some time ago. Some adorned with little sculptures of angels or cherubs, others squat and plain. None of them the one he sought out, not the right damn one…

He suddenly jerked forward, foot slipping behind on a slick patch of mud; with a half-strangled yelp, he fell face-first into the worn, drenched path…

_"Hey guys, you think Mira's gonna be okay with this all? I mean, it's been a year… the first year… she probably won't handle it well…"_

_"Mira's tough… she can get through it, we just need to be with her…"_

_"Yeah… we should probably watch over her though… just in case she does something… desperate…"_

The same conversation he had overheard just minutes before impulse and despondency had taken over, telling him it would be a great idea to snag an unsupervised bottle and go on this happy little stroll, that it couldn't do any harm, that he could handle himself…

_"Gus? Are you… going to be okay? It's… that day is coming up… if you want, I could…"_

No, just shut up… this is all of her fault, stop looking at him… not with those eyes, not with that sympathy… because he didn't want it, didn't want to need it, she could never replace…

_"Why do you think I would need your help? I'm fine. Don't think that I need any comfort."_

He didn't.

He could handle himself just fine.

With a groan that quickly petered out into panting, he struggles back to his feet; his clothes are splattered with water and sodden earth, his knees and arms aching with the impact, but it didn't matter because his feet are already moving forward, stepping erratically towards his destination where all would be better, everything would be okay again…

There it was. Small and almost unnoticeable, a simple plaque set upon bumpy ground, taking only a little bit of space… _how completely wrong, as his mind flitted to the past, of that tall and powerful man, eye-catching and magnificent…_

Knees thudded to the ground as he stared, glassy-eyed, at the barely visible, curled script that announced whose presence lay under this soil. Only two words managed to leap out at him; _Keith Clay_.

This wasn't the name he wanted.

The ceaseless, rhythmic drumming of rain was interrupted by the distinct sound of glass splintering upon stone.

The first choked word tore it's way up his throat, just unintelligible babble that he couldn't interpret, couldn't distinguish the difference between hate and anguish and betrayed adoration. No sound made sense to him, no feeling made sense to him, he himself didn't make sense to him. It was all just a year's worth of pent-up confusion, not knowing how to contain or unleash itself...

_A year's worth of words and feelings that, for all of the domineering caresses and his teasing attention towards the eager boy that waited on him, he wasn't sure his master could really understand. How could he when Gus had never gotten the chance to speak them out loud?_

It was soft, malleable, easy to shovel away to the side; it was only impotent topsoil, unable to withstand the fingers that clawed at it, attacked it, demanding that it disappear _and why did it listen to his demands, was there no solidity in this soil, was it supposed to be so easy to break…?_

With feverish intent, he dug, scooping away dripping silt and tossing it to the side, no care for what little grass he uprooted, or the dirt squeezing in beneath his fingernails, or the sharp rocks and fragments of glass that nicked his skin unkindly… a few drops of blood were nothing…

And suddenly he was struggling. Perhaps the earth had only been slow to react to his assault… it was harder, firmer, and trying to dig through the cold clay only numbed and wore at his slowing fingers, which instantly tried to spur themselves on, work faster, dig harder, _why was now the time the ground decided to remain hard…?_

There was no warning shout of alarm, of arrival; a pair of arms just suddenly sprang around him, fingers wrapping themselves around his wrists and jerking him away roughly, easily. And with little more than a gasp, he fell against a warm, shaking body.

And then he heard her voice through the drone of falling rain that slipped through every crack in her voice. "Y-you… you said you were fine… I _knew_ I couldn't believe you, I just knew… what do you think you're doing?! Grave-digging is a crime!"

His voice came out rasping, slurred, unfamiliar to his own ears… it would have scared him if he had the heart to feel something so unneeded. "Let… let go of me…"

She answered by tightening her grip on his wrists and pulling him closer. And he tried to pull away… before simply sagging into her, shifting all his weight against her, raw and bleeding fingers curling around her forearm.

And she continued to hold him tightly, fiercely, furiously. "You're such an idiot… you've gone way overboard, Gus. I know that you're upset, but that's no reason…"

Her scolding was cut off by a grating wheeze, by broken and jarring words trying to force themselves out, explain themselves. "I lo… he was… everyth… I don't want… without him…"

Her posture didn't change, her hold didn't get any tighter, she didn't speak up to comfort him as he turned his head weakly towards the tiny monument that bore a stranger's name, at the blurred gleam of bottle shards littered around it.

"W-why… why did he… it's not right… not fair…"

With a sigh that was nearly drowned out by the wind, he felt her rest her chin on top of his head of matted, drenched hair. One hand swept through the thick tangles consolingly, passing over his eyes and gently turning his head away. "… I'm sorry."

His whimpers quieted themselves. And she continued to speak.

"Gus, I… this is all my fault… but you can't just react this way… you need to move on…" She stiffened when a barking, listless laugh answered her, the touch of her hands light with worry and suspicion.

"How?" _How was it possible to move forward on unsteady ground that threatened to devour him, pull him under into the suffocation of being buried alive?_

"I…" Her low voice faltered. Gus craned his neck up sluggishly to find her his cerulean eyes, light and free and everything the earth was not, looking down at him with indescribable softness that, for a moment, he couldn't recognize. "… I'll help you."

Slowly letting out a breath of air, Gus closed his own eyes… and wondered if it was time to reach for skies instead of ground...

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**||*-* Holy crap, that actually took me a long time to write… I started it before NaNoWriMo, and then just kind of worked on bits and pieces of it… and the ending's making me mad… I fail at endings… **

**It's actually way different than what I had intended it to be… it was at first gonna be something like **_**Permafrost**_** and **_**Pensive Days**_**, with the random scenes outlining the relationship/s and then a finalizing scene… the finalizing scene for this was going to be the grave scene…**

**But then I kinda… decided that I didn't really feel like going with the other structure… and… wanted to do past Spectra x Gus… I so epically failed at the romance. I killed it. -_-;; I'm going to sue myself… buuuuuut, at least I can say that I wrote it… eh heh…**

**And I just realized as I was finishing up the fic… that I don't really write about pairings actually being TOGETHER. I kinda just… **_**imply**_** that there's… **_**SOMETHING**_** going on. The closest I've ever come to was with Anthopophagi… and that was crack… and it was still just through implying… I think…**


End file.
